Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russian forces are considering launching another large-scale attack on Ukraine on Tuesday evening, Reuters reports.
“According to information from our intelligence services, another large-scale attack could take place this evening,” Zelensky said in his evening video address to the nation, after previous nighttime attacks by the Russian military left 22 people dead across Ukraine.
“Please, I strongly urge you to pay attention to air raid alerts,” the Kiev leader said.
Zelenski said 130 people were injured in the attacks overnight from Monday to Tuesday, in which he said more than 70 rockets and 650 drones were launched.
Russian forces launched new attacks throughout the day on Tuesday, launching 100 more drones.
“Unfortunately, the current level of supply for our air defense does not allow us to intercept a significant part of the missiles,” Zelenskiy warned.
“All partners together, and everyone in Europe, must continue to work to ensure that Ukraine receives air defense missiles, the necessary systems, vital information and other resources that help save lives,” the Ukrainian president added in his message to the nation.
Ukraine's vulnerability to Russian ballistic attacks
The Russian Ministry of Defense said on Tuesday that its massive air attack on Ukraine, carried out with missiles and drones on the night of Monday to Tuesday, hit ten military production facilities in Kiev, including factories that produce attack drones, a bombing that again highlights Ukraine's vulnerability to ballistic missiles to counter which it does not have sufficient means of anti-aircraft defense, despite the consistent foreign aid received, the Reuters news agencies previously wrote and EFE.
According to the statement of the Russian ministry, three recruitment centers of the Ukrainian army were also attacked in Kiev.
According to the same statement, the barrage of drones and missiles fired at Ukraine overnight Monday into Tuesday was a further response to a Ukrainian drone attack on a high school dormitory in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine's Luhansk region last week that left 21 teenagers dead and 42 injured. Ukraine has denied that it deliberately struck that home and says its target was a Russian military drone unit.
The Russian bombing was also a retaliatory action “for other terrorist attacks on civilian infrastructure” in Russia, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
This bombing was one of the most powerful carried out by Russia against Ukraine and targeted the cities of Kiev, Dnipro, Kharkiv, as well as other Ukrainian cities and regions, and resulted in at least 18 deaths. This attack once again reveals Ukraine's vulnerability to Russian ballistic missile attacks, notes Agerpres.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy recently warned of this vulnerability in a letter addressed to his US counterpart Donald Trump, asking him for additional support in terms of anti-aircraft batteries and interceptor missiles.
According to the Ukrainian military, Russia used 656 long-range drones and 73 missiles of various types in this attack, of which 602 drones and 40 missiles were neutralized.
But another 33 drones and as many missiles, including 30 ballistic missiles, could not be intercepted and hit 38 different locations, which were not specified by the Ukrainian military.
“Europe needs its own anti-ballistic defense to end this war for good. And US assistance in providing missiles for the Patriot systems is absolutely necessary,” Zelenskiy wrote in a message previously published on the X platform.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sîbiga came up with even more precise demands and proposed new ideas to solve the problem of Ukraine's shortage of interceptor missiles. “Use the European Peace Support Fund to finance the PURL program and buy additional Patriot systems and missiles for Ukraine,” indicated the head of Ukrainian diplomacy.
The European fund he referred to, also called the European Peace Facility (EPF), is an extra-budgetary fund made up of contributions from the EU states and which is used for the purchase of European armaments destined for Ukraine, while the PURL program (“List of Priority Needs for Ukraine”) is a NATO initiative through which European countries that are members of the Alliance and Canada buy from the USA weapons and ammunition for Ukraine, such as PAC-3 missiles for the Patriot systems.
However, this new proposal by the head of Ukrainian diplomacy risks causing reluctance among some EU member states. This could be the case, for example, of France, which has not contributed to the PURL program so far, as it wants Europe to spend its money on its own arms industry and not on the US.
